Tag Archives: money

There’s a black and white photograph in my high school yearbook. It’s of people in winter gear hanging around a railing at the skating rink where our hockey team played. A banner of the team’s name, Trojans, hangs on the railing. The picture is captioned “Athletic Supporters.” Sure, it’s sophomoric. It’s a high school yearbook. Because I was Co-Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook, I was called ...

Last December, Actors’ Equity Association (AEA) imposed a new plan regarding the use of its members for productions in intimate theatres in Los Angeles County. A two-year battle between AEA and its members, as well as most of the producers of small theatre, was brought to at least a temporary conclusion with the dismissal of a lawsuit brought by AEA members against the union. Even ...

Chuck Berry may be dead but you know he won’t stay buried. He’s just too irrepressible for confinement to such a singular state. He was like his music: audacious and muscular. His huge hands easily enveloped the fretboard of his Gibson ES-335 and pulled sounds from it that would electrify the soul. Is it possible to remain still while experiencing the pure energy coming from ...

PRESS RELEASE LOS ANGELES (January 14, 2017) — Honoring the wishes of his sister Pearl Bordy Frazier, who passed away on October 9 of last year, Drama-Logue founder Bill Bordy has donated a total of $500,000 to LA STAGE Alliance and eight of its member theatres in the Los Angeles area. “Pearl loved going to work each day,” said Bill Bordy. “Despite what some considered her ...

The Sheri and Les Biller Family Foundation has bestowed a $15,000 grant on Sierra Madre Playhouse in support of its upcoming production, Thomas Gibbons’ Bee-luther-hatchee. The Sierra Madre Playhouse is one of four Los Angeles and Seattle area theaters newly designated as a grantee and is the only intimate theater to be so awarded. According to the Foundation, its “theater enrichment work fosters the art ...

Although 2016 theater news in Los Angeles was dominated by the battle over the elimination or preservation of the 99-Seat Plan, there were other stories that captured Footlights readers’ attention as well. Here are the 10 most-read pieces of 2016, along with their opening paragraphs. There’s a mix of both aggregated coverage and original insights. The list gives some indication of what theater-goers found most ...

Actress and writer Vanessa Stewart is well-known to the Los Angeles theater community and Footlights readers. With her husband, French, she is a popular host of LA theater award ceremonies and also a Plaintiff in the suit against her own Union, Actors’ Equity. She compiled an extensive production database proving, once and for all time, just how valuable the Equity 99-Seat Plan was to Equity ...

Wendy Worthington is an actor, producer, and founding member of Neo Ensemble Theatre. She joined Actors’ Equity Association only a few years ago. Her motivation was to throw in with fellow Los Angeles actors protesting their union’s termination of the 99-Seat Plan – the vehicle which has fostered the development of intimate theater throughout Los Angeles. Says Wendy: “I had come to Los Angeles to ...

There is much in the news these days about how artists, and the personnel infrastructure supporting the artists, need to be appropriately compensated. Los Angeles theater, of course, has become ground-zero for some of this debate. Despite claims to the contrary, you’d be hard-pressed to find a stage actor in L.A. who wouldn’t like to be more appropriately compensated. The issue is defining the term ...

From veteran actor and scholar Dakin Matthews who is currently appearing on Broadway in Waitress: In a recent letter to the membership – I assume I was not the only person who got it – an AEA press release (“The Actual Facts”) quoted Mary McColl as comparing Los Angeles to a number of other major American cities in order to “look at the facts.” Being ...